The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[misbhaven]

MY kids find worms for our chickens also

 

[misbhaven]

My little kiddos need a mom.

my dorking needs some kids LOL she is only part time broody almost every day for 2 weeks but only like 6 hrs then she gets over it but for those hours she turns into Cujo...i have some hatching next week i thought about giving her 1 or 2 to see what happens

 

[Leahs Mom]

I agree, lala. My broody raised kids are "wild children". But actually so are my current bunch of brooder kids. I try not to handle any of them much and since I moved them to their side of the chicken shed I really haven't picked them up much. They Screech like I'm going to kill them when I pick them up. But they also come running when I show up to ask, "Where's the beef?"

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
Just watch her closely with them at first. If she's not really in the "totally hormonal broody" phase she may try to kill them. It won't take long to see how she interacts with them but be sure to have a couple hours to hang out and observe.

 

[misbhaven]

anybody else have rabbits beside me sounds gross but rabbit droppings contain high levels of b vitamins and the chickens actually eat the rabbit poop...so the get their vitamins naturally even if kinda gross but bonus clean under the rabbit cages..

 

[subhanalah]

anybody else have rabbits beside me sounds gross but rabbit droppings contain high levels of b vitamins and the chickens actually eat the rabbit poop...so the get their vitamins naturally even if kinda gross but  bonus clean under the rabbit cages..

chickens are good for taking care of manure, duck, rabbits...don't matter lol

 

[Leahs Mom]

anybody else have rabbits beside me sounds gross but rabbit droppings contain high levels of b vitamins and the chickens actually eat the rabbit poop...so the get their vitamins naturally even if kinda gross but bonus clean under the rabbit cages..

@aoxa has rabbits.

I have read that rabbits actually "chew the cud" in a strange kind of way. You rabbit keepers may know more about this than me...but what it said was that they have 2 different kinds of droppings.

One they pick back up and ingest a second time. It's a kind of fermentation process after having gone through the digestive system then they eat it again to get the most vitamins and minerals from it. The second kind is the "real waste" dropping.

I wonder if it is the pre-digested dropping that the chickens pick up? (May be taking the rabbits food source, though....)

 

[subhanalah]

@aoxa
has rabbits.

I have read that rabbits actually "chew the cud" in a strange kind of way.  You rabbit keepers may know more about this than me...but what it said was that they have 2 different kinds of droppings. 

One they pick back up and ingest a second time.  It's a kind of fermentation process after having gone through the digestive system then they eat it again to get the most vitamins and minerals from it.  The second kind is the "real waste" dropping.

I wonder if it is the pre-digested dropping that the chickens pick up?  (May be taking the rabbits food source, though....)

rabbits eat their cecal poops. They look like little clusters of soft brown material. They smell very musty. They only eat them as they are expelled and won't eat them once they've been dropped on the ground.

These are probably what the chickens relish.

 

[misbhaven]

they don't like the duck poop, or cage i have the ducks in a raised cage with a pond in it rarely do they scratch in the duck poop..of course ducks splashing above don't really blame them..i also have a large kiddy pool and a ramp to let my ducks get some outside time they usually don't even bother with the pool to busy looking for goodies..changed a lot since the picture the whole area but the best thing i did was in the raised duck cage put a shower drain and valve no dumping yucky water...space saving and the chicken do hang out under it for shade when free ranging

 

[misbhaven]

they usually have the cecal first thing in the morning in there boxes the have wood boxes built one their cages....that and dropped food the chickens eat any dropped rabbit pellets